South East Scotland: Edinburgh (festival!)

Our arrival in Edinburgh was timed to coincide with the Edinburgh festivals – this post covers our four days in this most festive city!

16.08.2014 - 20.08.2014

One of my old work colleagues from London lives in Edinburgh. Once I knew when we were arriving I got in touch and he kindly offered his home to us as a base from which to see the city. So arriving at his home near ‘The Inch’, a 20 min drive south from the central city, we unloaded our valuables, enjoyed a quick coffee then set out to explore the town.

Finding our way on the bus we got off on the Royal Mile. This is the stretch of road between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace. It being Edinburgh Festival time, most of this was closed to traffic and packed with buskers. Some professional buskers I had seen around London during Christmas; the industry must be small! But we enjoyed prowling the road, assaulted by the sights and sounds of creative people desperately plugging their shows.

Royal Mile, Sunday afternoon - MENTAL!

This was fun for a few blocks but it quickly got too much. It was like we were the only tourists; every single person was being friendly and pushing fliers. We spotted a National Trust property and dived in to get some peace and prepare for more exploration.

The property turned out to be rather fascinating; the Gladstone House. Like the Tenament House in Glasgow, the Gladstone house was a tenement house but with parts dating from the 15th century. The volunteers were fantastic, it was fascinating hearing about the various extensions and demolitions over the centuries. The wee lady in the kitchen, an elderly lady donned in a bonnet, barely reached my hip and was quite hilarious. In the kitchen was a baby doll in an ancient crib. We remarked on it being a bit creepy; she told us in her adorable Scottish accent that a little girl had said her most memorable bit of the visit was ‘the dead baby’. Hysterical!

The Gladstone house

We continued up the road to Edinburgh Castle. The queues went on and on and we decided that no, we’d try first thing in the morning rather than experience that mess!

After Kate tried to give a homeless guy a museli bar, who politely declined (beggars can be choosers) we headed down the hill and north, visiting the National Gallery. I quietly remarked on various bared body parts and things; it’s fun to be a bit childish at times!

The National Gallery - and Scott Memorial in the background. 

We headed on, in to the ‘New Town’. A series of parallel blocks terminating in grassy squares, it’s a pretty effective design. We popped in to a pub to rest our weary feet, before my friend came out and met us for a pint.

The rain started coming down and we headed off to a free ‘comedy seminar’ I guess one could call it – our first free fringe event.

It was awful. Picture an awkward scientist trying to be funny but educational, using only the material in their own somewhat inconclusive thesis. A better demonstration of anyone being able to do a fringe show was never more evident.

After that my friend played tour guide hustling us through the city and to the bus stop home. We had a late dinner and hit the sack. Kate and I agreed it was rather odd to not be in the van!

In the morning Kate was seduced by my friend’s professional catering oven. While we have an ‘oven’ in the van, it has proven to be more of a warming tray; Kate leapt at the oven with gusto. A quick grocery shop saw her making delicious chocolate cake, bread and working on a Roast Duck for dinner. Still not feeling too well, the day off was what was needed.

Not for me though – I prowled Google satellite view to find nice places to walk nearby, and discovered Craigmillar Castle was just around the corner. So I went and had a look.

Craigmillar Castle

Former kitchen-turned bedroom. The bread oven is still there in the left corner!

cOOOO.

Back in the day Craigmillar was about an hour away from Edinburgh and the well-to-do popped out to do their secretive business. I wandered up and pottered through what turned out to be quite a substantial castle with lovely views back over Edinburgh.

Edinburgh skyline from Craigmillar Castle.

In the evening we enjoyed our Roast Duck, popped the Whiskey and enjoyed some philosophical discussion with our host (as well as bitching about our previously mutual employer – no surprise!)

The next day we pottered back to the New Town and the square there. Festivals descend on Edinburgh during August – the square was crammed with a book festival. We popped in and Kate bought a goody bag for £1.30 which included the amazing tome ‘The Complete Book of Mince’ (we are working through it). There were lots of ‘book signature’ kind of people floating around so a bit of people watching entertained us for a spell.

Book festival people

On the square is the Georgian House, the other National Trust property in town. A similar idea to the Gladstone house, the Georgian House is a much more up-market preserved apartment. The most interesting bit for me was how the square seemed a bit boring when it had been built – so they cleverly built facades with columns onto the front of the apartments to make the five separate homes appear to be parts of one grand manor. So clever, and it absolutely works!

Other side of the square - see the apartments appear to be one big manor - cool!

In the afternoon we kicked off our fringe-viewing and blew £8 on a fringe bloke, Alexis Dubis’s comedy show on travel and girls. Pouring in to the restaurant area of a hotel (it is remarkable where they cram event venues in to the city) we enjoyed his long form poem outlining his backpacking adventures. It made our pootling around in the van sound rather tame!

We had a little time after that show, so we popped in to the National Portrait Gallery. Just to get our mood down before the next gig, we headed in to the WW1 centenary gallery – the war told in portraits – very well done but not fun subject matter!

Our next gig was Phil Jupitus, and his free spoken word performance in an old theatre-turned-nightclub. A professional showman doing a free show out of respect and love of the festival’s idea rather than a money making venture, it was a real pleasure to experience. He invited his friend Bob Hill up to read some of his poetry too, and he was fantastic.

We retired after that, enjoying roast duck soup and more booze for dinner.

Enjoying a duck.

In the evening a combination of dehydration, oncoming sickness and snoring saw me rage out, leaving the house at 5am to sleep in the van down the road. When you’re a bit off and needing your sleep, nothing gets on your nerves like the sound of someone else enjoying a very deep slumber! A few hours of sleep later and all was forgiven – we headed in to get to Edinburgh Castle at opening time to avoid the crowds.

Edinburgh Castle is £19 per person – extremely expensive. My first year English Heritage membership was to get me in for £9.50, so we were surprised to get two adult tickets for £16. We kept our mouths shut and sent secret thank yous to our counterperson!

Edinburgh Castle

From the entrance - the Edinburgh Tattoo arena stand/stage/arena at the time!

The Castle is packed with wee galleries and museums. The views of the city are supreme. Of course, if you come to Edinburgh you kindof have to go to Edinburgh Castle – and everybody was coming to Edinburgh. So it was insanely busy, and getting more and more so every minute. Seeing Mons Meg, the huge Scottish castle busting cannon, was cool – as was seeing the Scottish crown jewels and sword. But a lot of the rest of the castle wasn’t blowing our skirts up – we’ve seen so many castles that we’ve seen similar examples of all of it elsewhere, and most often with fewer people around ruining the atmosphere. If we’d paid £19 each we’d have been dark; very glad we didn’t have to.

Amazing views from the castle

Mons meg, the great Scottish Castle-busting cannon

Kate sticking her head in mons meg.

Beautiful city!

As the crowds poured in, we trickled out and back to the Royal Mile, popping in to the Cathedral.

After the chaos of the castle nothing could have been more cathartic than entering that fine cathedral. A master pianist had just begun to play a grand piano, and his wonderful performance was echoing throughout. It was absolutely lovely, we both got lost in it. That kind of thing is going on all over Edinburgh over August – it is such a celebration of the arts, for everybody – it’s just the best.

After the pianist had wrapped up we headed off to what turned out to be a huge day of fringe events in a real variety of venues:

• Never Mind the Full Stop (free)
  Hosted in an arched stone cellar below a shithole bar
  A poetry panel game show modelled around ‘whose line is it anyway’ type games, which ended up with a 1:1 audience:performer ratio. Bob Hill was in attendance and Kate got to chatting with him – lovely.
  
• Crap Time Lord (free)
  Pilgrim, Craft beer pub across the road from previous shithole bar. Performance area: just part of the bar seating separated by black curtains.
  This guy was one of the better panellists from the game show, and his gig had about seven attendees. Focussing on his heart troubles and effects of his pacemaker thing, it was an intimate and very memorable performance by a real talent.
  
• Thinking Drinkers (£10 (two for one))
  In a pop-up building in St Peter’s square
  Fantastic show by two dapper gentlemen humorously making a top eight list of the world’s best drinkers. The hook was free booze during the show! Which turned out very educative. We got a nice Wheat Beer and then a shot each of top-line Vodka, Whiskey, Gin and Tequila along with the comedy. Has made me re-think some of the spirits I wrote off as a student – better quality spirits are delicious!
  
• Funny for a Girl (£8 (two for one))
  Pop-up Yurt tent in St Peter’s square
  Pretty terrible female comedians.

Knackered, we headed back to our temporary home.

So that was our Edinburgh Fringe adventure. We didn’t see it all, but it’s absolutely impossible to do so, and we have a lot of ground to cover before I head back home. But what fun it was! And you just go with the flow – we gave the ladies at the end a chance after the thinking drinkers, just because it was on (and we were a bit pissed!) You can hop from one gig to another so easily – such fun!

On the 20th we headed out of town to a campsite in Lauder, south east of Edinburgh so I could recover from my ailment. With any luck this will be the extent of the illnesses on tour! But, as weird as it is, after a few days out of the van, both Kate and I agree it is nice to be ‘home’ again. There’s no place like it.